Hosts File To Quiet Windows and Edge?

127.0.0.1       localhost

::1             localhost

127.0.0.1  data.microsoft.com

127.0.0.1  msftconnecttest.com

127.0.0.1  azureedge.net

127.0.0.1  activity.windows.com

127.0.0.1  bingapis.com

127.0.0.1  msedge.net

127.0.0.1  assets.msn.com

127.0.0.1  scorecardresearch.com

127.0.0.1  edge.microsoft.com

127.0.0.1  data.msn.com

Windows 10 Hibernation & Sleep Is A Little Wonkey

I always turn hibernation off.

Lately I've been fond of using a "sleep" shortcut.

%windir%System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

But on one PC it quit working.

How do you even tell if Hibernation is working anymore? CMD doesn't tell me anymore?

Speccy seems to know

But no hiberfil.sys file. Oops, it showed up eventually.

But shortcut works so I'm happy.

So, this was a PC where the sleep shortcut works and hibernation is off.

On the not working PC I turned on hibernation on and the shortcut worked.

Windows Terminal Settings

It's not tough but unless you know how, it's not intuitive and I forget.

Text Color

I like green text on a black transparent background.

In settings find "color schemes"

    Color Schemes occurs in general settings and in "profile defaults" and I change them all.

The secret is you need to "add" a color scheme and set foreground to green. Save it.

Set transparency to desired level.

Set your new color scheme to "default".

On a small laptop the terminal window is huge. 

In settings under "startup" go to  "launch size" setting

Lenovo X1 Carbon Touchpad Two Finger Tap Right Click Context Menu

I love Lenovo X1 Carbons used and/or refurbs. But on one I could never get the two finger tap to bring up the right click context menu.

Yes, it drove me crazy.

The two finger tap settings existed in the Synaptic settings and I changed drivers a zillion times.

Then I found this hint . . . so i did it.

I rebooted and it didn't work

. . . and then I looked again.

Dang, there are 4 of them. So I changed them all and BINGO.

Sadly this did not work on my old Gateway laptop. It had only one entry so maybe if I changed drivers. The Synaptic driver hunt is cryptic at best.

MX Linux Printer Settings

MX Linux is great at finding printers but some might need some config.

If you don't use Linux regularly it's easy to forget this.

Open a web browser and go to "http://localhost:631/printers".

Click "Modify Printer" and set following parameters.

- Your device will probably be shown already as "discovered"

- lpd://(Your printer's IP address)/binary_p1       for Device URI

- Brother       for Make/Manufacturer Selection

- Your printer's name       for Model/Driver Selection

Be sure to scroll through the list and select your printer even though it looks like it knows the right model because it was shown as device.

Try a test print

You can always go to the Brothers site and download the deb cups driver and install but it should not be necessary.

My MFC=7840W was a pig to get going until I found the access to the cups admin page and did the above settings.

Previously MX always grabbed the printer and worked without accessing cups admin so I was spoiled.

Obviously, if running in a virtual environment the network can not run NAT or it will not be on the local network.

DISM From USB Windows Installer

If your windows pc wont boot, I will show you some command we can use from Windows Recovery to try and fix and repair Windows 11 or Windows 10

dism command using your windows image

dism /image:c:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth /source:c:\windows

Add this command you yours and change path to your path

/scratchdir:{path}

This command uses the windows image on USB drive we created.

dism /image:c:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth /source:{path to install.wim or install.esd}

sfc /scannow from windows recovery

sfc /scannow /offbootdir={drive}\ /offwindir={drive}\windows

Important: Make sure you change drive letters to your drive letters 

Dell XPS Clean Windows Install

*Dang - after a couple weeks the screen turning off problem returned. So reboot is the only answer.

Still love the clean install but what the heck is this screen issue? I did put f.lux on recently . . .

- I haven't had a screen issue since uninstalling f.lux. F.lux may have been the bugger all along.

Nope, f.lux was not the problem. It's still happening. Reboot is the only temporary fix.

Finally sick of my Dell XPS 13 screen turning off for no reason . . . I did a clean install.

Wow, easy and what a difference. Just do it.

1. Download a copy of the Windows 10 media creation tool.

2. Select ‘Create installation for another PC and create an ISO. Drop it on to your USB Ventoy.

I didn't need to select Home or 64 bit and don't know why. But if you get the options select them. Home is the key tied to my Dell. Obviously if you have Pro choose that. Maybe I didn't uncheck the "this Pc" option.

3. Download the appropriate Wi-Fi driver and unzip it onto the USB drive.

(this was not needed, Windows 22H2 had it)

4. Reboot your laptop and load into the BIOS F2. Make sure the SSD is set to AHCI mode or the Windows installer won’t detect it. Dell has it set to RAID and don't think Windows has the RAID drivers.

5. Reboot and press F12 as soon as you see the Dell logo. I just press repeatedly.

6. Select USB in the boot menu and hit Enter.

7. Let the Windows installer boot and click Install Now.

8. Select Custom Install Windows. I delete all the partitions.

9. Follow the Windows installation wizard making choices as you go.

10. Once installed and onto the desktop, press Win+x then m for Device Manager. Don't panic if some drivers are not installed. Give Windows some time. It installed everything except one.

Something called "Base System" was marked as uninstalled. I wanted to avoid Dell installing crap so I went to Intel. It has a utility to install everything for it's chipsets called setupchipsets.exe and it took care of "Base System", whatever that is. This does not work on my HP PCs.

But what about all those special Dell drivers? I'm not missing anything yet and if I need something, I will go get it one at a time. 

Tip:

Remember to have local account no@thankyou.com, any password.

Blank password on local account to avoid all the security questions. Set password later.

Upgrade Windows Home to Pro

One of the laptops I've been using for several years came with Windows Home. Did I care? No. I've never needed Group Policy Editor. There's always another way to change things. Honestly, I was just curious about the process. And yes, I could have activated Windows without a key but . . .

So - I bought a key for $15 with TechYesCity discount. (Which I also received by registering :)

I opened Activation > Change Key and got the "didn't work" message.

I turned off WiFi

I opened Activation > Change Key again and input a generic key that triggers a pro upgrade

VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Well dang, no WiFi and it upgraded. I guess all the "Pro" stuff is living on the system already.

Ok, it's there but not activated of course . . .

So I turned WiFi back on and entered my brand new $15 key . . .

Yikes, it might work - Wish me luck.

Hot dog. It worked. slmgr /xpr

Ok, it's OEM but I really didn't expect retail. I don't see a problem. slmgr.vbs /dlv

If I want to reuse the key, this may be the way.

Need to verify a key? You may need to choose different "software package" selections.

Here was my result . . . LoL Windows 7. I'm calling it an OMG key

Seriously, for $15 who really cares. It's activated. Get over it.

Or there is always this . . . :) KMS is a beautiful thing.

What happens if you need to reinstall?

I just had to when C drive failed. It worked fine. Fortunately I kept the code on D drive.

CMD Command Prompt & Powershell Terminal

 

CMD

sfc /scannow

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Copy boot files to Windows boot directory

bcdboot c:\Windows /s G: /f ALL

(c: is good window source and g: is boot partition)

FixWin11 context menu delete

reg delete HKCR\DesktopBackground\Shell\UWTSettings

Master Boot Record Fix

cd to the windows drive

bootrec /fixmbr

bootsect /nt60 SYS

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /scanos

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Print Directory Contents

Do this (works on folder and or file names)

dir /A:D /B > "filename.txt" (will create a txt file in the directory)

A activates switch mode

D restricts to display current path only

B restricts to name of folder only

or you can copy to clipboard

while in the directory type

dir /b | clip

Python Simpleserver

Python 2 — python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

Python 3 — python -m http.server 8000

Turn firewall off temporarily

(I would use HFS server) (maybe PairDrop.net)

Reboot to BIOS

shutdown /r /fw /t 0

Remove Files & Folders

rmdir /s /q path

If won't delete chkdsk /f on the drive.

Static IP Manually

Static IP Problems try this with your numbers. Maybe it will stick.

netsh interface ip set address “Ethernet” static 192.16.10.34 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

WiFi Connections Previously Connected

netsh wlan show profile (will give a list of previously connected WiFi networks)

netsh wlan show profile bobswifi key=clear (will give the passwords to bobswifi)

Windows Activation Check

slmgr /xpr

slmgr.vbs /dlv

Powershell

Chris Titus Windows Tools

Chris Titus powershell (irm christitus.com/win | iex)

Clipboard contents

Get-Clipboard

Remove files & folders

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force path

Reset Group Policy Settings to Default with Command Prompt

Open Command Prompt window as administrator and run following commands:

RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy"

RD /S /Q "%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers" 

Linux

ip address or ip a

python3 -m http.server 8000

It may actually default to port 8000 without specification.

MX Linux live root password is "demo"

Ventoy in Linux

Grab tar and extract to folder (most file managers today can do this)

open terminal in folder

sudo sh Ventoy2Disk -i /dev/sdc

i = install

/dev/sdc = USB drive for Ventoy

If disk is already mounted you may need to unmount.

Software

sudo apt install fsearch

sudo apt install neofetch

Disable Defender and Exclude Stuff

*Actually, this has become part of my "essential setup" for Windows.

*Also I use a folder called "Excluded" instead of "Sordum" and I place other things in there that Windows hates like WirelessKeyView from Nirsoft. Life is good.

Also comes in handy if you take a peak at Medicat :)

There are times in our digital life when we need to reject Microsoft controlling what we are doing. Running and enabling things disapproved of by Windows Defender was always irritating . . . but now it's painful. Toggling protection off in the interface no longer completely disables Defender.

With Windows Pro, Group Policy is the easiest and Winaero has a toggle. Just search "disable defender".

With Windows Home, Sordum has Defender Control v2.1. You still have to negotiate "allow" a few times when first starting it up but nothing ridiculous. Simple one click on/off to disable. It may be possible to use PolicyPlus but it runs independently and portable so the Winaero switch probably won't work. It may work manually but why bother when Sordum stuff works so easily.

Make a folder called "Excluded" and exclude it from Defender access. Dump the Sordum files there and extract them. (I've added a few things here so it's somewhat fragmented)

Now that we have our pesky program installed we may need to exclude a few files and folders from Defender monitoring before we turn Defender back on. And we do want to turn it back on. Sordum to the rescue again with Defender Exclusion Tool. Just drag and drop the files and folder into the GUI. It does standard exclusion but in quick and easy interface. Actually standard exclusion in the Windows Security module is easy also.

I just put the Sordum files on a PC and Defender was driving me crazy . . . so . . .

1. Make a folder where the Sordum files will live.

2. Go to manage virus & security settings and add that folder to exclusions or use Sordum Exclusions to exclude the folder. 

3. Extract the files. Defender Control is .rar and 7zip will extract. Password is "sordum"

4. Before you start Defender Control the first time be sure to exclude the .exe file.

This is a good procedure for the few programs that Windows hates but you know are harmless.

Downloads

Exclude (also in Symenu)

Control (It's a rar file so in 7zip first try you may have to "allow" then unzip again.) Password "sordum".

Handy link for Exclude folder https://mega.nz/file/svBFQaiD#RSkjy5cN3bHewTXp-5zM_vcR_fUkged1Eq4ua7rH_Zw

Find WiFi Passwords on Windows

 Open CMD

netsh wlan show profile

netsh wlan show profile name = "ENTER NETWORK NAME HERE" key=clear | find "Key Content"